On submission authors will be required to warrant that their articles represent original research not previously published, other than as a disclosed preprint in accordance with the Preprints policy below, and contain nothing libellous or otherwise illegal within them. Although editors are required to report any concerns of such content to the publisher, neither the publisher nor the editors take responsibility for the content of the articles.
All Discover STM journals follow the ICMJE authorship criteria.
In summary, only individuals who fulfil all four criteria below (from the ICMJE website) should be included as authors:
Ghost authorship (excluding a contributor who meets the authorship criteria) and gift or guest authorship (listing someone who does not meet them) are serious breaches of publication ethics. Every listed author must have made a genuine intellectual contribution and agree to be accountable for the work in accordance with the ICMJE criteria above.
Plagiarism is the unattributed copying of material and is considered a serious ethical offence. Copying of any material (including figures) without permission of the copyright owner is an infringement of copyright law. Permissions are not required for materials that have been published under open licences where the copyright owner has permitted such copying, for example by using a Creative Commons licence.
Submissions may be screened with iThenticate. Suspected plagiarism or unattributed duplication will be assessed according to its nature, extent and context, following relevant COPE guidance. Depending on the circumstances, the journal may seek an explanation or correction, reject a manuscript, correct or retract published material, or notify an institution in serious cases. Authors remain responsible for obtaining necessary permissions for reproduced material and appropriately acknowledging and citing it.
Substantially overlapping findings or data published more than once without adequate disclosure, cross-reference or justification may constitute redundant publication. Inappropriate division of one study into multiple minimally distinct papers (“salami-slicing”) is discouraged. Editors will assess the circumstances and may seek an explanation or take action in accordance with relevant publication-ethics guidance.
Authors should use reporting guidelines appropriate to the study type, such as CONSORT for applicable clinical trials. Relevant guidance is available through the EQUATOR Network. Individual journals may require particular checklists for specified article types.
Authors are encouraged to make research data available when consistent with ethics approval, participant confidentiality, applicable law and funder requirements. Data may be provided with the article or deposited in a suitable repository, such as an institutional repository, Figshare or Zenodo. Confidential patient-level data should not be openly shared where doing so would breach these obligations.
We strongly encourage authors to include a data availability statement in their articles, for example:
Individual journals may mandate data deposit, and if so this will be indicated in their author guidelines. Note that some authors may be required to place their data in a repository as part of their funding agreement: this is the responsibility of the authors.
Authors, reviewers and editors must declare relevant financial and non-financial competing interests that could affect their research, judgement or editorial decisions. These may include funding, personal or professional relationships, and recent collaborations. Reviewers and editors must withdraw from handling a submission where a conflict compromises their impartiality. Submitting authors must provide appropriate disclosures, and each published article must include a competing-interest statement according to the journal’s requirements. The ICMJE Disclosure form may be used to support consistent reporting.
Authors must protect patient confidentiality and remove identifying information that is not essential to the report. Written consent for publication is required when a patient may reasonably be identifiable from the text, images, clinical details or other information. The patient or an authorised representative should understand what information will be published and how it may be presented. Consent for publication is distinct from consent for medical treatment and from consent to participate in research. Anonymisation should be used where possible, but it does not automatically replace publication consent where that consent is required. For deceased patients, authors should follow applicable journal, institutional and ethical requirements for publication consent.
Research involving human participants must comply with applicable local regulations and internationally accepted ethical standards. Where required, authors should obtain appropriate prospective ethics approval and report the approving body and approval details in the manuscript. If formal approval was not required, authors should state this where relevant. Authors must protect participant privacy and comply with applicable informed-consent requirements. Retrospective approval is not normally a substitute for required prospective approval. Case reports do not normally require research ethics approval, although consent for publication may still be required. Review articles without new research involving participants do not normally require such approval.
Human research should adhere to the principles of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, alongside applicable local regulations and institutional requirements.
If concerns arise about compliance with these principles, editors will assess the circumstances and may seek an explanation, reject the manuscript or refer serious concerns to the relevant institution or responsible body.
For research involving animals, authors should report applicable ethics approval or oversight and confirm compliance with appropriate institutional, national and internationally accepted animal-welfare standards. Further guidance is available from the International Association of Veterinary Editors’ Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare.
Authors must declare all sources of research funding in their article, naming the funder and the grant number where applicable. The role of the funder in the research (study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing) must also be stated. Where no funding was received, authors should include a statement to that effect.
Image adjustments made to clarify presentation must not misrepresent the underlying data. Authors should disclose material image processing where relevant, and editors may request original or source images for assessment. Inappropriate or undisclosed manipulation that alters the interpretation of an image may constitute research misconduct.
Authors may use AI-assisted tools (e.g. large language models, generative AI writing assistants) in the preparation of manuscripts only for tasks such as language editing, translation, or formatting. The following conditions apply:
Individual journals may adopt additional or more specific requirements for AI use disclosure, as indicated in their author guidelines.
Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts, manuscript data, images or other unpublished submission material to publicly accessible generative-AI systems or services where confidentiality cannot be assured. Reviewers remain fully responsible for the content and integrity of their reports. Any permitted use of AI-assisted tools must comply with the journal’s confidentiality and disclosure requirements and must not replace reviewer or editor judgement.
Concerns about fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, inappropriate image or data manipulation, duplicate or redundant publication, authorship misconduct or other serious breaches of publication ethics may be investigated by the journal, publisher and/or relevant parent organisation. Editors will consider the evidence and seek explanations as appropriate, following relevant COPE guidance. Depending on the circumstances, the journal may take appropriate editorial action and may contact institutions or other responsible bodies. Outcomes will be determined after assessment of the concern.
Discover STM Publishing Ltd journals may consider manuscripts previously posted on a recognised preprint server. Posting a manuscript as a preprint does not, by itself, constitute prior publication.
Authors must disclose the preprint at submission, identify the server, and provide its DOI or permanent URL where available. They must ensure that the submitted manuscript complies with the individual journal’s policies. After publication, authors should update the preprint record, where possible, with a citation and link to the final published article.
Authors remain responsible for applicable funder, institutional, copyright and third-party requirements relating to preprints. Individual journals may establish additional requirements where appropriate. A preprint should not be described as a peer-reviewed publication.
Research that may have significant dual-use implications should be handled in accordance with applicable legal, regulatory, institutional and ethical requirements.
Because the relevance and level of risk vary between disciplines, individual Discover STM journals may establish specific policies for dual-use research of concern where relevant to their scope. Authors must disclose applicable regulatory oversight, approvals or restrictions relating to such research when required by the relevant journal.
For journals that publish clinical research, applicable clinical trials must be registered prospectively in a publicly accessible clinical-trial registry that meets recognised international standards. Registration should normally occur before enrolment of the first participant. The registry and trial registration number must be provided in the submitted manuscript.
If a trial was not prospectively registered, authors must provide a clear explanation. The journal will determine whether the manuscript can be considered in accordance with applicable editorial, ethical and reporting standards. Individual journals may specify additional clinical-trial registration requirements in their author guidelines.
